How to become a professional gamer: from healthy living and networking to... lots of practice
For many, it would be a dream job: being paid huge sums to play video games for 12 hours a day. But becoming a professional eSports gamer isn’t as easy as it looks. With hundreds of thousands of hopefuls trying to break into this lucrative industry, competition has never been higher to nab a coveted spot on one of eSports’ top teams of gamers.
And for good reason: eSports has exploded over the past few decades. Though it can trace its origins back all the way to the first multiplayer consoles in the 1950s, today, it's an industry involving hundreds of thousands of players, the best of whom can fill arenas at huge in-person tournaments. With the industry on track to reach £180m in the UK alone, and massive pots of prize money to win (Fortnite player Wolfiez took home almost £800,000 from just one tournament at the tender age of 15), it's huge and still growing.
People who make it to the top of the tree in Fortnite, CounterStrike, , Dota and are not only famous, their income can total hundreds of thousands of US dollars. But how to get to get women into professional gaming, and world champion Warzone player Jukeyz – about what it takes to be the best of the best, and how to plot your rise to the top...
